Well, as a Canadian, I keep learning about how different my country is from others.
Sometimes, I’ve made too many assumptions. We are all—in a sense—a product of our environment, think our backyard is no different from the guy’s next door. WRONG.
So, I was confused on the subject of free speech, recently.
Here, in Canada, we have a law that forbids the incitement of hate The law takes priority over free speech. This means that you are free to say what you want, but only as long as what you are saying does not promote hate against any group (for example, people of colour, the LGBTQ community, faith communities.)
Here is a summary of the law:
Public incitement of hatred
319 (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Marginal note: Willful promotion of hatred
(2) Every one who, by *communicating ****statements, other than in ***private conversation, willfully promotes hatred against any **identifiable group is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.
producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.
*communicating includes communicating by telephone, broadcasting or other audible or visible means; (communiquer)
** identifiable group has the same meaning as in section 318; (groupe identifiable)
***public place includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, express or implied; (endroit public)
****statements includes words spoken or written or recorded electronically or electro-magnetically or otherwise, and gestures, signs or other visible representations. (déclarations)
__________________________________________
After just a bit of research, I discovered that only a few countries share Canada’s commitment to end hate speech. There have been seven notable cases, here.
Here is one example (this is from a CBC article )
Ernst Zundel
Ernst Zundel sits in a court in Germany in 2005 at the beginning of a trial where he was accused of incitement. (Michael Probst/Canadian Press)
Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel lived in Canada for four decades, making frequent court appearances to argue for the freedom to express his anti-Semitic views in books and pamphlets and on a website.
In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned his conviction for "spreading false news," saying that the charge violated his Charter right to freedom of expression.
The German-born Zundel, who wrote the introduction to the book Did Six Million Jews Really Die?, was deported to Germany in 2005 after a Federal Court judge ruled he was a threat to national security.
He was freed from a German prison in 2010 after serving five years for denying the Holocaust.
______________________________________________________
So, in Canada, if you are caught spraying a graffiti tag on a wall, you will be charged with mischief and damage to property.
But, if you are caught spraying a swastika on a wall, you will be charged with mischief, damage to property, and a hate crime. IT’S BIG BIG CRIME. ENORMOUS. YUGE FINES.
Fines can go up to $10,000 and a sentence can be 2 years in prison.
There are (of course) defenses for the spreading of hate. And they have been used successfully in Canadian courts.
What do you think of this? Are you surprised? Horrified? Interested? Unable to absorb it? Wish your country would draft a law similar to this? Hope your country never drafts a law similar to this?
Please, share your thoughts, you can be rude, lol, but you can’t be hateful or target a single group on this blog or I will sentence you to a full blockage. Intelligent argument will be rewarded with more of the same—passionate speech against the attack on minorities that promote discrimination and hatred.
Peace sign from A Passionate Cannuck
PS- I'd tried this as a blog, but I guess it broke the "controversial" politics rule. However, I'm free to post this as prose.
PPS-- no hate was used in the writing of this opinion piece. And Soup Terms and Conditions 14) Remember, people have different opinions. That does not make them wrong. Be considerate of other's opinions.
:DDD

THE CITY AND THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY
No one worries about morals today
They follow the rules they create
So to them all is ok
Those on the outside looking in
Are the only ones feeling queasy
As avarice and selfishness triumphs
So easily
Good corporate citizens they claim to be
Industry awards abound on their walls
As thank you tokens from themselves
Yet society harbours a lot of ill-will
As it feels the often brute force of
The raid
Grab
And destroy mentality
Of people only wishing to make money
Any which way
While Using up all of society’s communal resources
Sharks abound
The waters are forever bloody as they
Know no fraternity and would gladly
Cannibalize anyone with no influence
The ability to upend competitors
A cherished characteristic
In a bullish machismo drenched environment
Bullet proof psyches
Absorb and repel any pangs
About unfairness
Blocking any regulatory or chattering classes’
Attempt at nirvana and equality
They employ better paid lobbyist
So always have the upper hand
In influencing policy
The gravitational attraction of money
Towards another even bigger pot of money
Numbs any cautionary instinct
That would take a long term view
The thrill of instant riches
Overpowers common sense
And even decency
Fat cats they all wish to be
The slickness of glossy tongued lobbyist
Who spin wrongs till they become rights
Embolden oestrogen low males with no inbuilt brakes
To take risks that eventually cost them disgrace
They are champions of graft not of society
Loopholes in legislation
That were built in by too friendly politicians
Coupled with ambiguous suits and claims
Cause far reaching hardship when the good old days are long gone
The villains only muster some phantom national pride
When begging for a lighter sentence
Some are forgiven
Others fatally wounded by an unforgiving public
Lots of money can be made both legally and illegally
As one racket is closed another materialises instantly
The conveyor belt of dishonesty
Overwhelms bureaucracy
Who is not David to the goliath that is money
The ethos is wealth
The acquisition and the maintaining of gains
Not often acquired through hard work
There is no limit of acceptable financial comfort
For the millionaire always wants to be a billionaire
And the mega rich super rich
Money must always be hidden from the taxman
Shareholders want tax free dividends
Investors want tax breaks for buying with other people’s money
Infrastructure and new runways must be built
But not from the pocket of those who wish it
With their hands outstretched
And always wanting more and more
From a government too eager to please
We have a tax system geared to the advantage of party donors
And non-domiciled moguls and tycoons
Who know no philanthropy unless it is tax efficient
Disadvantaging society by
Never paying their fair and moral share
The largess they reap so selfishly
They wish not to share
Wages are low
Taxes are nil
Only the investor wins as we pay his bills
Fast paced expansionist dogma
Is preached within city limits
Only the highest paid
The biggest company
The greatest profits
Are allowed
They are held up as ideals that all who
Wish to succeed must follow
Gunslingers they all appear to be
Rushing in to capitalize on the wanton success of their peers
The cloud of misery left behind
Is never seen for the look forward
Never backward
Hindsight is never welcomed in this parasitic environment
The political will to weed out these reckless demons
Is lukewarm at best
The revolving door of government creating opportunities
For industry and industry gratefully accepting politicians post government
Ensures that self-interest is king
An economy built on flawed assumptions of wealth creation
Is one that must forever be in hyper-drive
Creating ever expanding demand and supply
That is as real as a thief’s conscience
When taking the rings off a dead persons fingers
Money must always be made for
There is no alternative
Wealth is good
Poverty to them is laziness
The city is not the heart and soul
Of the nation
It is but one player in a system skewed in its favour
We all must share in the wealth of this country
To ensure its longevity

Unquotable quotes: The How of Democratic Kill - IXL, Part Two
No, tell me not my vote now does not count
(Shakespearean Sonnet)
No, tell me not my vote now does not count
For with my vote you do what pleases you most
You stoke the breath of dragons in Levant
And melt the caps of ice encased in frost
Tell me not my vote will make enemies flee
And set right wrongs long festering in hearts
My vote's my word you take and hold un-free
In Senate and House with bickering darts
You cursed and you conned your rival's public
You lorded your worth with your campaign wrath
Who would've wondered who I'd have to pick
And make me rue my days gone behemoth
Ask not for my voice to be raised in hope
Lest you lay at my feet world in syncope
The difference between a Democratic State and a Dictatorship is that there is - in the ultimate analysis - NONE! when it comes to dealing with its/their so-called "opponents" whom they consider persona non grata within or beyond the State (likewise between States), with the difference that Democrats - through long experience as colonisers of "barbaric" heathen peoples - have acquired the art of best concealing their means: toolkits and tried and tested highly refined sophisticated methods of persecution. Dictators, on the other hand, don't much care what the world thinks of them which simplifies things for them.
Within the Dictatorship, the family and favourites assume and share power to the exclusion of even the army or the political party which may have at some pivotal stage permitted the rise of the dictator and have "legitimised" his sway over the masses by abandoning the electoral processes and by dismantling the bi-cameral institutions in order to make room for direct rule by decree.
In the democratic state, the leaders like to be seen to be courting the people with populist chants during election campaigns which somehow have the habit of turning into hollow promises during the period they stay in office, as if to say, "If only the mandate had been for life!"
Under a dictatorship, the leaders subject the people to the constant fear of being held in a perennial court where the dictator displays the art of taking the law into his own hands, whereas in the democratic state leaders succeed in subverting the due process of law whenever it serves their interests.
By contrast, in a Democratic State, even if all the semblance for the proper working of the rule of law appear to be in place, real power would seem to reside in monolithic political party heads, trade union leaders, industrial magnates, conglomerate bank CEOs, media over-lords, the secret service, the police and in some cases the very judicial apparatus and the chiefs of armed forces and veterans of resistance movements and other pressure groups, lobbies and their likes, but the truth is certain ethnic and/or religious entities and the free-masons share the power to influence and shape the future of communities and townships not only within but also over the borders of nation states.
Now the real or imagined persona non grata in a democratic environment is made out to be an "anti-democratic" individual (when in actual fact the free-masonic and religio-ethnic groups brand the unwanted un-submissive individual as a bigoted racist or anti-semite). Democrats are only as racist as their morals are free.
If you watch carefully how politics evolve(s) mostly on the world stage, the driving motivating force is racial or religious in origin, no matter how much or how fervently politicians and religious leaders talk of love of unity and peace in the name of humanity at large. At an insignificant level, some like the free-masons may give the impression of wanting to transcend racial, religious, sexual or ideological divides, but this even in countries with five major "obediences" reeks of hypocrisy.
Just as there are dictatorships and democratic states, there are "demi-dictatorships" all over the colonised world striving hard to imitate their mentors.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2016

In golden chains of bondage, was the royal queen
Brought forth, force to kneel, before the newly crowned
Pharaoh of Egypt!
Branded a heretic, a blasphemer of the Gods, a traitor to
Her people, unworthy to wear the serpents double crown,
Of upper and lower Egypt!
In silence, this once proud princess of the
Royal Egyptian court, stands convicted of treason, and
Sedition, without a trials voice, guilty is the rulings
Judgment, by nobilities closed court of law!
Thee Nefertiti are found guilty, and banishment
Is the judgement by thy kindred blood, your final
Punishment to be given unto the God’s themselves,
Let the name and image of she, Nefertiti, be struck,
From all monuments, obelisks, and never spoken
Of again, so the newly crowned Pharaoh, declared!
She was then so expelled into the custody of the
Royal priests, and taken beneath the royal throne,
Into the hidden temple of the unknown!
Deep beneath the golden throne of power,
Underneath layers of dust, and mortar stone,
Was she so led, before the Alters of Bathe, and Horas?
The priests spoke with incantations ancient tongues,
Evoking the deities to come forth, tossing sacred
Dusts into the burning flames, two figures of smoke
Materialized, a large cat Goddess, shimmering in
Illuminated torch light, and a dark black God, of death's
Underworld kingdom!
At the roaring growl of the cat Goddess, Bathe,
As a great wind, chilled the temple hall,
Priests fell backwards stumbling as to fall!
Then as the quivering temple did shake, Horus’s voice,
Thundered wide from hells gate, accursed she that
Whom stands before me, is to run forever, a beast,
Of fur and fangs, never to enter the afterlife beyond.
Bathe then stride forward, striking at the bare flesh of
Nefertiti, then both deities vanished into thin vapors mists!
Shaking as the bloody wound eloped forth red, beauty did
Transform, by the illumination of the basking moon above!
In sheer pains agony, the once proud Queen of the river Nile
Clasped, into a heap upon the floor!
The supple flesh of skin tore away, by the sharpened claw,
Her tresses of raven black thinned, as a short coat, of animal
Fur burst forth, the noble features of beauty, turned awkwardly
Inside out, leaving a canine wolfen mask behind,
Thy judgment is thus so given, daughter of Pharaoh!
Run she, this Nile banshee, howling beneath the
Elliptical tidal moon of Egypt, begging from within
Side the beast to be freed, from this the corse
Of Horas, but the Deity remains silent, and
A lone devil hound, runs alongside the
Shores of the River Nile!
Is this just fantasy’s legend, for no tomb of Nefertiti,
Has ever been found, or mummy identified.
Yet it is true that many monuments, that bore
Her name, were harshly damaged, why or whom did this
Remains a question for debate, no one truly knows for sure?
But the howling of the Nile wolf does sound,
When the moon appears full, and the shadows
Encroach, upon it at high tides monsoon!
Does the she, Nefertiti, the wolf so wails,
In the weeping tongue,
Trying to speak her hidden name, Nefertiti,
Only a forgotten Deity knows for sure, he
And the fallen Queen, whom once called
Herself the Living God, the Pharaoh of
All Egypt!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN

It is a witchy tradition to pass down your first broom to
The next generation, but poor dear sweet Mable inherited an eye
Sore from her elder granny, the handle topped end was crooked
In a twisted bent way, the middle was weather warped and taped
Together by gorilla glue, but the worst part of all the broomy
End, which instead of straw horse hair hanged like a droopy tail!
Embarrassed, Mable begged to have a different choose,
But her mother would not hear of it, it is a tradition
After all, so make it do child, is all that she would say!
On Halloween night, all the other witch children took to flight,
Proudly riding propped side saddle upon their magical broom
Sticks of pristine condition, but poor Mable suddenly came down
With a mysterious cough!
Don’t you worry her mother said, I’ve got just the cure for you
My dearest daughter, some raw eye of newt will fix what allies
You, oh know Mable cried I’d feeling better already sorry got to
Fly, leaving her dear sweet mother laughing!
Jumping upon her broom stick of utter embarrassment, Mable
Zoomed straight upwards towards the moon, it zigged than zagged
Against the night skies, this youthful witch had a hard time just
Controlling the wobbling hobbled handle, than she felt something
Give way beneath her very bottom, the middle was splitting!
In complete horror Mable screamed, and in that moment
A disembodied voice spoke upon the winds of Halloween,
It was her long past away granny’s voice, child believe in
My broom and it is a marvelous mystical thing!
So Mable spoke to this her witch’s broom, I believe in
You, and at that very moment, this object of distain
Turned into a golden rod, its misshapen bits shone
In brilliance against the moon’s illumination, piercing
Through the darkness, oh my Mable sighed!
But at the end the horse hair still clung, the brooms
Energy level was low, time for refueling so to the dark
Side of the moon, where the nearest scare station,
Was located, here a stray cat jump upon Mable broom!
Skat cat, poor Mable tried to drive this calico kitty away,
After all she was a witch you know and only a black cat
Will do for her familiar, but this kitty poised itself on
The horse hair end, as if it were her place always!
Mable tried to lose it by dodging between satilghts,
Yet Mr. Tag-A-Long four paws held on with all its might,
Alright she thought we’ll test your true grit, in a free fall
Drive she zoomed, side swapping between power lines,
And street telephone poles, but when she turned around
The cat was still there, grinning right back at her!
Again her Granny’s voice spoke to her, I’ve sent you a
Gift my girl, my familiar if you’re nice to her she,
Turn into the finest kitty you’ve ever seen, so Mable
Leaned backwards ever so slightly, and patted the
Ugly thing, and it changed right before her eyes,
Into an emerald eyed, black cat with sleek fur of
Ebony, and the horse haired tail changed into a proper
Straw end!
Oh thank you Granny, Mable declared, I’m sorry
I judged your gift by looks alone, I’ll never do that
Again, and from that moment on Mable the witch
Judged things on a different scale, by what lies within
Not by appearances, the end!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN

Beware the wrath of the Northern Polar boogie man,
The Anti-Clause, a legendary beast of nightmarish voracity,
From folklore mythology, a dark creature of demonic prowess,
Lurks in the hidden shadow realm, in a freezing forbidden zone,
Of Artic temperatures deadly depth, where raw instincts thrive
On basic survival alone!
Sensing his ill prescience even Jack Frost takes shelters
Offensive stance whistling not, nay instead leaving the area
For friendlier territories beyond, this creatures evil grasp!
Blistering creaking, bone chilling bitter winds blow thus,
For tonight it emerges, from whereabouts’ murky passages
Unknown, beneath ice covered alpine mountains, a hissing
Snarling echoes against the rocky ragged slopes!
Behold the fork tongued beast, with piercing red glowing eyes,
Steps outwards from the hollows darkest myth, and into the
Realm of humanities reality, a ram horned satyr,
Whose existence is linked by fate to none other than
Father Christmas himself, the balancing scale of good
And evil must be maintained after all!
To mystical legends intertwined, by ancient scrolls
Of positive and negative, a good list, and one naughty,
Twin opposing sides, Old Chris Kringle beloved by all
The children of the world, and the Krampus feared!
A gigantic Manimal grinning with a seething grimace,
Unrolls his sacred parchment of tainted names and
Deeds mischievous, checking by his talon clawed
Digits each child will receive crimes punishment!
As the Krampus drool drops upon the newly fallen
Snow stinging it to burn and sizzle, an anticipation
Of his hunger never satisfied for violence and
Mayhem, the whipping branch quivers in this
Anti-Christmas creatures massive grasp!
As Santa Clause’s magical crimson sack holds the
Dreams of millions innocent, so within the Krampus
Black ebony knapsack, lies the screams of countless
Generations of lost souls forgotten!
In the cold of the forbidden night, a stalker crunches
At the layers of ice and snow, with heavily laden hoof
Steps, seeking, waiting for the lights of houses to be
Shut off, then the Krampus will strike with cruelties
Unmerciful limb of justice!
Nay but some naughty offenders receive a terrifying
Fate beyond the clashing lash, at the double check mark
Of the Krampus’s fine point claw, these greedy and soiled
Children of humanity disappear, within the bowels of his
Ebony knapsack, never to return again to the
World of men!
As the Krampus’s bag threshes, this beastly Anti-Clause,
Recites an Ancient unnerving tune:
THE KRAMPUS UN-LULLABY
Fee-Fi-Foe-Fume I smell the foul stench of a naughty one,
Be she or he fast asleep or wide awake, their souls and
Flesh shall be mine, by Christmas morns faded rays of twilight,
Now hush, hush little Johnny or Jane, for I am thy equalizer
For eternal pain, beware my wrath and stinging branch,
Greed’s spoiled and guilt’s bullies, for I am the ageless,
The unrelenting, the creature known as the Krampus!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN